Things in the past
by Instant-Wonton
Summary: The darker side of pokemon; The darker side of humanity. Inhuman things can happen to anyone you know...
1. Chapter 1

Espeon sat, straight backed, regal looking as always, staring into the fire. Her trainer Taylor had noted on several occasions how she seemed to love the fire, so much so he thought she might have been a flareon if given the choice. He smiled contently to himself and leaned closer to the fire to steal some of it's warmth. Each day as night crept up on them, he would make a small bonfire to keep warm and bring her out and they would sit together, curled up on the ground before falling asleep in the makeshift tent. Unlike other trainers, he detested the use of pokeballs. While the pokemon seemed happy enough to come in and out of them, no one was ever truly sure what happened to them while they were inside of it. He had heard some rumors only a year or so after his journey first began, about pokemon becoming stuck inside of the balls, having to be rushed to pokemon centers to see if the nurses could do anything. There was very little to be done since it was such an uncommon thing to happen, but the nurses would do their best. The rumors had stopped very quickly afterwards, but he had been hearing similar things on the wind yet again, a full 7 years afterwards.

Things- strange things- could happen to pokemon inside of their pokeballs. He'd heard twisted tales of more then one pokemon being forced into a single ball, combining them, turning them into unimaginably horrible looking monsters in constant pain. Some had no skin- he'd heard- and others where there should have been a mouth or eyes were only holes leading into nothing but the insides of their body. Their organs would spew out onto the ground, and the combined pokemon would fall over dead in nearly an instant.. Some had managed a few human words- 'love', 'friend', 'betrayal'.. Words that made a trainer weep when they heard them. They stung, deeply, leaving a mark on the trainer's heart so deep that they might never have battled again, and many did not.

Taylor had but one pokemon- his beloved Espeon. Once upon a time he had had many more, but those days of collecting were past. He had given many up to more attentive trainers who would love them just as dearly, and others had gone of their own free will, trying to find their place in the world. Some of them had gone for him to turn a profit, selling them off to various gym leaders, leaders of dark organizations, and rich brats whose parents could afford to buy the kind of pokemon Taylor had raised. Loving pokemon who never once questioned an order in battle, even if they knew it to be a mistake. They battled, not to win, but to be a slave of their owners, which was exactly what their owners had wanted.

On this night the moon was a mere sliver of what it could have been and the sky was a deep royal blue. Espeon looked up at the night sky through the bright orange autumn leaves, the firelight illuminating them, making them almost glow in the night time. She shifted to dislodge a rock that had been pressing into her backside, and quietly purred to herself. Taylor looked over at her; as Taylor looked at her he felt an immediate sting of regret. It seemed like each time he looked at her he felt worse and worse, remembering the things he did, the person he used to be. Selling pokemon was a trade he was long since out of, and had no intention of getting back into. Taylor curled his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around himself in an effort to keep warm. It seemed like no matter how hot the fire was, the ground was always frozen.

3


	2. Two years ago

Espeon walked over to Taylor, yawned, then curled up in his lap. Espeon was his only pokemon, and he liked it that way. He wasn't too fond of battling, which seemed odd considering his vast number of badges from so many different regions. He had gotten it in his head that badges were to only way to gain respect among the training community, but soon found otherwise. Most trainers judged others by their battling skills and their pokemon's obedience, as well as friendship. All the badges he had now were old, wasting away in the bottom of his bag. He didn't put any effort into maintaining them the way most people did, he wasn't proud of them. They were more or less a way to physically show what a good trainer he was without having to battle so often. His own Espeon had only been in a handful of battles herself, and was not terribly strong, but was extremely well trained. She could follow any order at any given moment, and often did not need instruction. Taylor looked down at her curled up in his lap purring softly. He placed his hand between her ears and stroked her head gently; making her eyes open to look up at him. She was never in a pokeball, and would either walk with him while they traveled or ride on his shoulder- it was something that they both loved.

Not being forced into a pokeball established many things with a pokemon. Since they were always with their trainers- a deeper bond grew between them a lot quicker. They always knew what the other was thinking, partly because of the psychic element between them, partly because they were never apart. Espeon got to see more of the word them most pokemon. There are no windows, or ways to see out of the pokeball, so most pokemon only saw their training grounds and various places for battle. She saw everything, and loved the world. She and Taylor had traveled far together in the last two years, but still, she didn't understand everything about him. Though he was always laughing and having fun, he would sometimes turn sullen and almost sad when it rained at night. Espeon would curl up with him and purr as she rubbed her head up to his and he would smile and rub her ears, but still nothing felt the same when it rained. She assumed it had something to do with the years he traveled before they met, the ones he never talked about but said she saved him from. She didn't understand that, and often liked to think of herself as a super pokemon capable of saving him when he was the one who found her in that terrible lab when she was still an eevee.

It had been about two years since then and her memory of it was very fuzzy, but still, very clearly she knew it was Taylor who had rescued her. She still had dreams about it sometimes- of a very large, dark room, illuminated only in some far off corners. It seemed as if the lights were always out, and often people in long white coats with a strange black and red logo on the front would come up and tap on the glass of the cage she was in. She remembered still being very bright and happy when people came up to her, and she would often try to get them to open the cage and pet her, still, no one ever did. She had been there since being hatched as an egg, and couldn't remember ever having felt a loving hand.

She watched the other pokemon around her, in cages much like hers, and having been there for about the same amount of time. She watched them be taken out and never returned to their homes, often replaced with new pokemon. She never worried about it, she hadn't seen enough of the world to know what could possibly be happening, nor could she ever imagine. All she knew was that dark with it's strange yet familiar faces. One day, about two years ago, one of the men in white coats brought in a face she didn't know. The men looked at the cage, then back at him and poked at her cage. The new face looked at them silently and shook his head up and down. She liked looking at him. She liked the new face that didn't seem so strange to her. He was tall, and his skin was a slightly different color then the others. Almost yellow one would say. His eyes were small, and seemed kind of squinty, but at the same time big and happy. His hair was the thing she loved the most- it was long and black and perfectly straight, pulled back in a pony tail that hung just past his back. Immediately she wanted to feel it, and walked up and leaned against the glass with her paws, trying to tell him to let her out. Maybe he would understand what she meant, since the others never did. He had still been talking to the other, much shorter man in the white coat when she did this, he glanced over at her and a huge smile crossed his face and his eyes lit up. He muttered something to the man in the white coat while pointing at her and the an shook his head up and down repeatedly before hitting a button to the right of her glass cage. Above her, the ceiling opened up and the new face was leaning over the cage looking down and smiling widely.

"Hi there beautiful" He said softly to her. She backed away initially out of fear, after all, she'd never seen the top of her world open like that before, but as he lowered his hand down to her she warmed up. He placed his hand on the top of her head for the first time and a sudden burst of love and happiness ran through her entire body, and she imagined, must have run through him. He reached in and pulled her out, holding her against his chest. She nuzzled and purred and cooed and just enjoyed being in his arms. She had never felt this way before, so full of a warm emotion. He continued to stroke her head as he talked to the man, who was very irate that eevee was out of her cage, but the new-faced man just brushed it off and kept talking.

About ten minutes later the man with the long hair and new face set her back down into her little cage and closed the lid- then he and the man with the lab coat walked out of the room leaving her behind. She sat in the cage with one paw against the glass, feling her heart sink as she realized she would most likely never see the man again, and would most likely never be held again. Eevee curled up in a ball and put her tail over her face and, after several hours of a heavy heart keeping her awake, fell asleep.

The flashback is continued in the next chapter, and before I get any comments on being racist for describing Asian eyes as "squinty" I'm only describing myself ; And yes- my hair really is that long x.X


End file.
